GraceCreates

By Jon Walker

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:19-30 (NIV)

In the Bible, when people totally surrender themselves to God, they’re often described as ‘broken.’

God uses broken things for his purposes. When our lives are broken before the Lord, his light is able to shine through us. It’s a divine principle: God takes us; he breaks us; he blesses us, and then he uses us.

A simple way to see this principle is during the miracle when Jesus fed the 5,000. He took the bread; he broke it; he blessed it, and then he used it.

Jesus is the supreme example of this brokenness. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he said, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42, NIV).

When you experience a personal Gethsemane, you’re moved toward the depths of faithfulness, certain God is on the other side of your faith, and that makes you willing to say, “Not my will, but your will be done.”

This is a statement of oneness, you’re heart becoming one with the Father’s. Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision, says it this way: “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.”

If you’d like to receive these devotionals regularly, you can sign-up at www.gracecreates.com/subscribe/. Jon Walker writes from www.gracecreates.com. He is a Zondervan author, and the former writer/editor of the Purpose Driven Life On-Line Devotionals. This devotional is copyrighted 2008 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.

By Jon Walker

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Romans 5:6 (NIV)

You learn to trust God by obeying him in small ways.
 
At this point in your Jesus-life, you probably agree God is the supreme ruler of the universe, powerful enough to overcome any problem or defeat any enemy, that “everything comes from him; everything happens through him; everything ends up in him.” (Romans 11:36, Msg)

And, if this is true, then your struggle to give it all to God is not over the issue of whether or not he’ll be able to fulfill his promises — He clearly can do that.

Perhaps the resistance you and I exhibit when we’re faced with trust is because we seriously doubt God will look out for our best interests — ‘Yes, I believe God can work this out, but will he?’

Or, ‘I know I can work this out, but I’m not sure God will, at least I’m not sure he will do it the way I want to see it done.’

God patiently understands your hesitancy – He made the first move toward establishing a loving, trusting relationship with you. He didn’t wait until you could be trusted to receive his love, and he doesn’t insist you become trustworthy before he trusts you with precious gifts (Romans 5:6-8).

God supports our small steps of faith – When we obey God, even in small ways, “we find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.” (Romans 5:2 Msg)

If you’d like to receive these devotionals regularly, you can sign-up at www.gracecreates.com/subscribe/. Jon Walker writes from www.gracecreates.com. He is a Zondervan author, and the former writer/editor of the Purpose Driven Life On-Line Devotionals. This devotional is copyrighted 2008 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.

By Jon Walker

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 (NIV)

One of the biggest jerks I ever knew was a 23-year-old college graduate whose anger and arrogance spilled into many of his relationships.  His hypocrisy was astounding as he claimed to be a Christian one moment and then acted like a son of hell the next.  If it had been my choice, I would have avoided him all together – but since that jerk was me – I was stuck being around him.

Most of us try to avoid jerks.  We pat ourselves on the back for not telling them off; we applaud ourselves for putting up with them; we remind ourselves everybody has a cross to bear, and so we grudgingly accept certain jerks as our divinely-ordained burden.

But Jesus embraced jerks; he graced them with love. Now, he had no qualms about calling a whitewashed tomb a whitewashed tomb, but the corporate evil of the Pharisees was a different matter from mere human jerkiness.

And the point is this: Jesus didn’t shelter Himself from the pain and heartache caused by jerks.  In fact, he voluntarily stretched out His arms on the cross and allowed a few jerks to slam nails into His hands and feet.

Behind all their stomp and snort, jerks are still spiritual beings, created in God’s image and destined to heaven or hell.  We’re compelled to be ministers of reconciliation, willing to embrace the pain of a fallen world for the sake of our God. (2 Corinthians 5:16-21)

The heart of the gospel is that God loves the unlovely.  Could it be that the jerks God places jerks in our lives to teach us to be more like Jesus, who loved the unlovely?

Most of us take for granted the incredible change God initiated in our own lives: we were once jerks to God, yet, even while we were still jerks, Christ died for us.

If you’d like to receive these devotionals regularly, you can sign-up at www.gracecreates.com/subscribe/. Jon Walker writes from www.gracecreates.com. He is a Zondervan author, and the former writer/editor of the Purpose Driven Life On-Line Devotionals. This devotional is copyrighted 2008 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.

By Jon Walker

He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.” John 9:11 (NIV)
 
A sign of our spiritual maturity is when we follow TRUTH wherever it leads; we face the TRUTH no matter how much it hurts; we stand on TRUTH no matter how much it costs.
 
We’re called to come out of the darkness into the obedience to the TRUTH, who is Jesus Christ, our Lord: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, NIV)

When the seeing man saw the TRUTH, his whole perspective changed.
 
We see Truth with Jesus-eyes – The seeing blind man now has eyes that see, and he sees with Jesus-eyes. Yet, when his neighbors the man is no longer blind, they his neighbors can’t believe their eyes; they’re blind to the ways of Jesus: “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14, NIV)

We testify Oneness-with-God – As the seeing man walked back from Siloam, those who’d ridiculed him saw a man transformed. His abandonment to God transformed him into a new man; Jesus re-created him from a man born blind to a man who could see to eternity

If you’d like to receive these devotionals regularly, you can sign-up at www.gracecreates.com/subscribe/. Jon Walker writes from www.gracecreates.com. He is a Zondervan author, and the former writer/editor of the Purpose Driven Life On-Line Devotionals. This devotional is copyrighted 2008 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.