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

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.

By Jon Walker

Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses!” John 9:28 (NIV)

As the ‘Salvation-by-List’ leaders’ prosecution-disguised-as-investigation collapses, they reached for the universally feared Weapon of Mass Distraction: Ridicule.

If the lie you’re standing on begins to crumble, then ridicule the Truth. It’s a screwtape-ian way of distracting others from the weakness of your argument, the position you’re defending.

“Then they cursed him and said, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.’” (John 9:28)

Ridicule escalates to intimidate – The List-as-Law leaders subpoena the parents of the man (no longer blind – WOW!) – in order to ask if their son boy had really been born blind. As so often happens when legalists attack (on FOX tonight), the parents are intimidated into dropping their testimony; instead, offering their son as a sacrifice to their fears. They, in essence, say, “Don’t ask us; ask our son. Keep this between him and you. We don’t want to cross you, even if it means our son, or the man who healed him, end up on a cross.” (John 9:19-23)

Ridicule runs toward rejection – Another screwtape-ian riff: When all else fails, reject the opposition, shut out anyone who believes or behaves differently from you, anyone who won’t agree with your mythological-truth. The List-and-Law leaders, unable to intimidate the blind man — oh, wait, he’s no longer blind – WOW! – declare the judgment their actions already signaled, and they throw him out of the synagogue. (John 9:30-34)

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.