GraceCreates

By Jon Walker

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Romans 8:15-16 (NIV)

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Praise Jesus, he spoke of “my father”; now he speaks of “our father.”

We are no longer slaves to fear, but children of joy, able to cry, “Abba, Father.”

Consider this:

Mr. Smith, a better than average driver, is cruising down main street. He’s done nothing wrong; he’s under the speed limit; his registration is up-to-date.

Yet, when he glances in his rearview mirror and sees a police car following him, he gets nervous.

The policeman doesn’t have his lights on, his siren isn’t screeching, and he doesn’t appear to have his eyes on Mr. Smith.

Yet, Mr. Smith’s anxiety grows.

He starts down a mental checklist of anything he might have done wrong: Was I speeding? Did I cut somebody off? Did he see me roll that stop sign? Is my taillight out? Why didn’t I buy those tickets for the policemen’s ball!

Mr. Smith steals another nervous glance into his rearview mirror and takes a panicked breath when he sees the policeman switch on his lights.

And then he watches the policeman pull past him and speed down the road to an emergency call.

Mr. Smith is a snapshot of us when we continue to live in fear of the law even after God’s grace has entered our lives. “Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18 NIV).

Our objective-in-Jesus is to reach the point where we so deeply believe God’s love that we no longer fear there will be punishment, but in faith, we believe the love of God, in reality, covers every one of our sins.

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 go to the Feast. I am not yet going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come.” John 7:8 (NIV)

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We fly through our weeks at an Internet-access, call-me-on-my-cell pace with barely enough time to breathe between the persistent beeps coming from the PDA.

Even in the church, we over-schedule meetings, ministry, and meals. In our efforts to become like Jesus, we’re developing a very un-Jesus-like characteristic: busyness!

You never think of Jesus as a hurried person. He never seemed stressed over getting more things done.

Can you hear the efficiency experts?

“Jesus, you’d get a lot more done if you had more assistants than just the twelve.”

“You really need to attend that council meeting in Capernaum if you want to make headway with the Pharisees!”

“Why are you still here in Galilee? Your ministry would be so much bigger if you’d move to Jerusalem. Such talent going to waste!”

Jesus’ brothers said, “You ought to leave here and go to Judea . . . . No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world” (John 7:3-4 NIV).

Jesus simply told them the timing wasn’t right, because he was on the father’s timetable.

Now, as it was, Jesus followed almost immediately on the heals of his brothers. But he did it low-key because he did not want to be swept into events that might distract him from his purpose or that might push him off God’s timetable.

Time after time, as Jesus walks through the Gospels, we hear him referring to the Father’s will; he knew he’d been sent by God for a purpose, and he stuck to that purpose.

What’s the best way to manage your time? Figure out who God created you to be and what he created you to do, and then resolutely set out to accomplish God’s purpose (Luke 9:51).

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

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Romans 12:2 (MSG)

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On a warm and windy day in downtown Nashville, my friend, Doug, held the door to a building open for a woman coming in just behind him.

She said, “You don’t have to hold the door open for me just because I’m a woman.”

He smiled, saying, “I’m not holding the door open for you because you’re a woman; I’m holding it open for you because I’m a gentlemen.”

Regardless of what you may think of disappearing, old school courtesy, the point I want to make is this: we do things because of who we are in Christ, not because of who someone else is in life.

Who we are comes from the inside, from our Holy Spirit connection to God. We live and breathe and move according to that Spirit; we’re shaped by the God-life within us, not by the push and pull of the world around us (Colossians 3:5).

We open doors, if you will, because we are one with Jesus, not because of who someone else is or who someone expects us to be or who the culture thinks we ought to be. We “have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within [us], so [we] don’t need anyone to teach [us] what is true” (1 John 2:27 NLT). We let ourselves “be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness” (1 Peter 1:15 MSG).

And when we open doors, we say, “I do this because I am a Jesus-one. I do this because Jesus-life is present in me.” We do not do because of an image of what we think Christians do, we do because we’re led by the Jesus-life that is stretching us toward a “well-formed maturity” (Romans 12:2 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 2009 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.

By Jon Walker

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. Matthew 26:40 (NIV)

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Read this devotional as a prayer:

Help me, Lord, to develop a strong prayer life. I know you desire intimacy with me, and that you want me to watch with you and pray (Matthew 26:40).

Yet, I never seem to find the time to pray in a deep, fervent, consistent, persistent way. What draws me to my knees the most is when I have a problem, when I want something from you, when I need your help.

I’m flipping through my calendar, stressing with commitments, and you just want to hang out – with me. Help me turn my prayers into conversations with you that keep flowing throughout the day, an on-going communication, where I never say amen.

Keep me close to you, no matter what it takes. I’m not sure I really want to pray that; I have bruises and scars from whatever-it-takes discipleship, but, then again, I confess the crush of these moments have taught me to throw myself on the stone before the stone falls on me.

And that has moved me closer to the love that compels my obedience, closer to becoming one with your heart. So, I’m asking that you change my “wanter” until my deepest want is to be with you.

With this I pray that you will create me worthy of my calling and that your power will fulfill every good purpose you plan for me and energize everything I do in faith.

My prayer is that your life will emerge in my face and in my hands, in my thoughts and in my words. I know your grace will make it so (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, 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.