GraceCreates

By Jon Walker

“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Matthew 26:41 (NIV)

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On the night before you died, you prayed for me, that I would be as close as a heartbeat to the Father (John 17:22).

On the night before you died, you called me friend, no longer a servant, because you’d taught me everything the Father taught you (John 15:15).
On the night before you died, you came to me with bloody sweat dripping down your face and arms because you’d stared straight into the future with eyes wide open at the truth, while I hid behind the covers of my deep, denial sleep.

On the night before you died, you shook me and seemed to ask, “Can’t you watch with me? Come beside me, friend, and wait the time with me” (Matthew 26:40, author paraphrase).

On the night before you died, I saw a man intimate with sorrow, but also the Word become man, “the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 NIV).

On the night before you died, you understood my struggle, but never demanded that I understand yours. You whispered, “I know how it is, brother, the spirit is willing, but the body is weak” (based on Matthew 26:41 NIV).

On the night before you died, I saw you, friend, so full of sorrow, yet, on that night you proved to be the better friend, still the teacher, still the brother, still thinking of me above all your own needs, the Lamb of God on mission to redeem faulty friends, like me.

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 2009 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.

By Jon Walker

Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Psalm 51:8 (NIV)

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In the school of Christ, brokenness is a good thing.

Here’s why: It’s impossible to become intimate with God unless we are broken of our independence, broken of our pride, and broken of our insistence that our way is better than God’s.

We must be broken of the illusion that we bring anything to the peace talks when we seek to end our war with God; the only surrender God requires is unconditional.

• Brokenness is the last stop before we finally confess, “I can’t; God can.”
• Brokenness is the apostle Paul confessing, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24 NIV).
• Brokenness is the prodigal fighting with the pigs over food (Luke 15:11-32).
• Brokenness is Joseph, still in prison, forgotten by the cupbearer (Genesis 40:23).
• Brokenness is Jonah in the belly of a whale, confessing the consequences of running from God, “I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you” (Jonah 1:12 NIV).
• Brokenness is Peter weeping bitterly outside the trial of Jesus (Luke 22:62).
• Brokenness is Jesus abandoning everything to God: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42 NIV).

God breaks us so he can use us. We can smash our pride against the solid rock of Jesus, confess our sins, and admit our need for him; or, the stone can fall on us, meaning God in his ruthless, loving pursuit of us will break us of our pride and sin folly and independence (Matthew 21:44).

Like Jesus serving bread at the Last Supper, God takes us, breaks us, blesses us, and then uses us.

Oh, Lord, may you hear our joy and gladness; may the bones you have crushed rejoice (Psalm 51:8 NIV, author paraphrase).

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 2009 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.

By Jon Walker

You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. Romans 6:18 (NIV)

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For years I wandered away from God and my image of that time is that of a traveler on a trail through the wilderness.

I left the trail and got lost.

Wandering in the wilderness, I lost even the memory that I was there because of my own sinful choices. Eventually, I lost the truth that I had any choice at all. It felt like I was held hostage by my choices and that I had no choice but to keep making the same choices. What other choice did I have?

So, part of my prodigal return was realizing I still had a choice, starting with the foundational choice that “I can’t, but God can.”

Once I returned to God’s path, I could clearly see the terrible, horrible choice I’d made to wander away, and the resulting waste of time, energy, and missed opportunities. Not to mention, I’d been exhausting myself trying to live life like it was never designed to be lived.

What I could also see is that I still had choices: I could continue down God’s path, I could sit and mourn the waste, or I could return to my wanderings.

But, most of all, I finally believed my freedom of choice left me free not to sin. I did not have to sin; I could choose not to sin. I am free from sin, not free from temptation, but free from the slavery of sin that kept me chained to ungodly choices.

Jesus broke the power of sin in your life, and he’s empowered you, through the Holy Spirit, to make the right, corrective, godly choices.

Be still and know that he is God – and think upon this truth.

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 2009 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.

By Jon Walker

When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Acts 21:12 (NIV)

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When Paul was on his way to Jerusalem, a prophet named Agabus came to see him. He took Paul’s belt and he tied it around his own hands and feet, telling the apostle, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles’” (Acts 21:11 NIV).

Hearing this, Paul’s friends immediately tried to talk him out of going to Jerusalem, but he went anyway, saying, “I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13 NIV).

What the Holy Spirit told Agabus was fact; Paul was bound and handed over to the Gentiles in Jerusalem.

But this is an illustration of why we should always let God interpret the facts. He has a heavenly point-of-view, able to see the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The facts, by themselves, may not reveal the whole truth.

The greater truth was Paul’s arrest became the means for getting him to Rome, which he’d been longing to visit for some time. Once in Rome, Paul was placed under house arrest, forcing him to stay in one place after so many years on the road as a missionary.

Bound in chains, Paul began to write letters to the congregations he’d helped plant, and some of those letters are available to us as books in the New Testament.

It was a fact, then, that Paul would be arrested in Jerusalem, but God had a different interpretation of what the facts meant. He planned to use the arrest to further Paul’s ministry, not only in Paul’s generation, but all the way into our own.

We may gather facts, but leave it up to God to interpret them for you.

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 2009 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.