GraceCreates

By Jon Walker

Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” Luke 13:14 (NIV)

Imagine, you’ve just stopped by your neighbor’s house for a quick visit and while you’re chatting in the den, her toddler trips and hits his head on the sharp edge of a coffee table.

Before you can even move the toddler turns toward you and there’s so much blood your stomach gets queasy. As you rush to help the child, you hear the boy’s mother behind you screaming, “Oh my Lord, he’s ruined my carpet!”

If the story were true, you’d be pretty angry, perhaps even livid, that a mother would be more concerned about carpet than about her injured son. Most likely, you’d question whether she was fit to be a mother, and so would just about anyone who heard the story.

Here’s the thing, the problem Jesus had with the Pharisees was that they were more concerned about the carpet than they were about the injured child. They placed a higher value on rules and regulations than they did on the people they were meant to shepherd and love.

They elevated the how above the wow.

Luke, the first missionary doctor, describes a microcosmic moment in life lived among the list-lords. The local leader of the lists chastised Jesus for, in a sense, rushing to the aid of a bleeding child instead of making sure the carpet stayed clean.

“Those of you who are bleeding, come back tomorrow!” (paraphrase of Luke 13:14). Can you think of a more effective way to teach that love is not a 24/7 thing? But among the list-lords, love is subject to all rules and regulations. “And the greatest of these is the law.”

God’s grace to you as you learn to walk by faith and not by lists.

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

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7 (NIV)

Making our way down a list of rules appeals to our pride; it nurtures the notion we can earn God’s favor through our own efforts.

The thing about following lists is they keep a bit of fear in the room even as God is chasing this anti-faith out the door with his perfect love.

By tightly embracing God’s grace, we’re free to live free and without fear. The spirit God places within us is one of God-courage and uncommon boldness. It is not a spirit of timidity.

Timidity is based on the false belief that terrible things will happen if we make a mistake. It is a fear that God is not big enough to conquer our failures, whether they be sinfully deliberate or simply accidental.

It is a sin rooted in a passive legalism that proclaims we’ve got to do the right things in the right way at the right time, perfectly every time, or we will be in trouble with God; and that he, like some overbearing father, will keep us from going to the ball because we smudged soot on our Cinder-dress.

That is a lie with the smell of hell all over it because Jesus paid for every one of our mistakes and now there is no fear in love. God’s perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. Those who remain fearful are not made perfect in love; they still fear the punishment (1 John 4:18).

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 he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23 (NIV)

It’s a classic riff in the handbook of comedy. A leader stands before a group and says, “I need a volunteer. There’s little chance of success and most likely you will die, but if you’re willing to do it, take one step forward.”

Everyone in the group looks around, then collectively they all take a step backward, except for one hapless bullwinkle who now appears as if he took a step forward. He’s become an involuntarily volunteer.

By its very nature, service-is-sacrifice must be voluntary. Jesus says no one took his life from him, rather he gave it up freely: “I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father” (John 10:18 NIV).

Jesus, as a voluntary volunteer, shows us how to pour ourselves “out for each other in acts of love,” doing “for others what they cannot do for themselves.”

Likewise, the first Christian martyr, Stephen, offered up his life voluntarily. We may not be asked to die for our faith, but Jesus does expect us to die daily in sacrificial service for one another (Luke 9:23).

In some ways, our daily dying may be more difficult than a one-time physical death because it may mean staying silent when every bone in our body wants to do otherwise.

In matters of service-is-sacrifice, are you among those who take a step backward, leaving someone else to involuntarily volunteer? The Jesus model of service-is-sacrifice suggests you step forward, offering to take the place of the involunteer.

Understand this, your freedom in Christ allows you to make a choice. If you decide to stay in sacrificial service, you’re no longer an involunteer because you’re volunteering to remain.

May God supply us with the courage to serve with sacrifice.

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

[Jesus], being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Philippians 2:6–7 (NIV)

Most of us approach humility in one of two ways:

• We act like humble looks. We consciously act the way we think humility looks. But, by doing that, we live with a fabricated humility.
• We assume we’re unworthy. We assume we’re insignificant, and we live like a Tom Petty-Refugee, as if we’re somehow second-class.

The biblical approach to humility means you understand exactly who you are, but more importantly you understand exactly whose you are and that God has placed you where he wants you for such a time as this. In this way, your humility is not attached to your self-esteem.

In other words, rather than trying to think less of yourself, think more of God.

When you agree with God’s view of you, a Jesus-formed humility emerges in you. Like a lowly baby in a manger, you’re no longer burdened by needing to know all the answers or needing be in control of everything. You are dependent on God and those God sends to help you.

This is the thing: you will succeed in your Jesus-life because of who God is, not because of who you are. He supports you, not because you pretend toward perfection, but because he knows you can’t succeed without him. In your humility he becomes your strength for any task before you. God created you, prepared you, and called you to share the good news for such a time as this.

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.