Category: Jesus Moments

Jesus said, “It is finished.” With That, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.  John 19:30

Every climb a mountain?  The first part is often easy as you walk miles along flat terrain until the ascent begins.  The end usually requires supernatural effort as you push your muscles beyond their accustomed limits.  Standing at the summit, you declare victoriously, “I did it!”

There’s exhilaration over what you’ve accomplished.

Jesus finished the redemptive work when he spoke the words, “It is finished.” Heaven was exhilarated.  God prepared for his Son’s homecoming!  There was nothing more to be done to accomplish our salvation.  A spotless Lamb was needed to atone for sin, and Jesus was the only one qualified.  Our efforts are nullified though our relationship to sinful Adam corrupted our genetic makeup.

I once treated Jesus’ death as though it were insufficient, even though he stated otherwise.  I worked zealously to make my contribution to the redemptive cause.  I thought I could make it more complete.  I declared some of my worst acts unforgivable and refused to believe Jesus when he said, “You’re fully forgiven.  Dance with joy!”  Seeing myself as guilty, I labored feverishly to earn the rest of my salvation. I burned out for the cause of Christ, believing that he required it of me so my sin would be paid in full.  What a tragedy.  Radical forgiveness and complete restoration was mine to embrace.

You did it all, Jesus. You died so I wouldn’t have to.  Your blood was payment for all my sins and I was meant to walk out of sins’s prison as a free woman.  Amen

Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5

To be meek is to be gentle, forgiving, and not easily angered. But perhaps you’ve heard the expression, ‘meekness is weakness’. That’s because what can look like meekness is often downright timidity.

Meekness is often attributed to a personality type. Those who are naturally meek in nature haven’t attained it by God’s definition. The bent toward being peace-loving is in their DNA but they are imbalanced. I speak from experience. I am a gentle person by nature but my heart is wicked. Others have often admired me for what they see on the outside but would be taken back by what I’m thinking on the inside. That is why Jesus made sure to tell His disciples that it’s not appearance that matters but what is in the heart. The Pharisees looked righteous but were full of pride. I can look meek but underneath, it still can be all about fear and pride.

Jesus is the perfection of meekness. None of us would say that Jesus was weak. He knew when to be gentle but also knew when to be angry. He was both extremes under God’s umbrella of righteousness. Gentleness was not used as a cover to gain admiration or as a way to avoid confrontation.

He was not above using His power to speak to a raging sea, call out the demonic, turn temple tables over, or rebuke a seething mob who were set on His destruction. And yet, when He could have answered the taunts of the crowd to call upon heaven to deliver Himself from the cross, He chose restraint and forgiveness. Meekness was really strength in disguise!

When Jesus was angry, He was never out of control. He knew what He was doing. When Jesus was meek, He was also never out of control. He knew what He was doing. Once I understand the great power of God that undergirds true meekness, I will seek it earnestly. Someone once said, “If all God’s attributes were offered at auction, the last one to be sold would be meekness.” That’s only because I don’t know Jesus well enough yet.

Expose my fears for using meekness to hide and give me grace to live in the power of holy restraint when it doesn’t benefit me, but benefits You and Your kingdom. Amen

And I did not recognize Him, but in order that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water.  John 1:31

Even though the mothers of Jesus and John the Baptist were cousins, there is no record anywhere that John and Jesus knew each other as children.  Even if they had, John did not know Jesus was the Messiah until God the Father revealed it to him.  He was spiritually blind until God opened his eyes.  Perhaps he only knew it as Jesus approached the Jordan river and John saw Jesus walking toward him.

I can not see Jesus either until God opens my eyes.  I can not even recognize Jesus’ activity around me unless my heart is touched by God in a way that allows me to discern His presence.  I am like a blind sheep.  I am lost and cannot find my way home without being led by the hand.  I did not even decide, on my own, to become God’s child.  He had to grace me first with the faith to believe.  I responded to His invitation.

My faith only exists today because His grace births it moment by moment.  How about the times I looked back, consumed by the painful things of my past, and asked, “Where were you, God?”  I was blind, ignorant that God was right there.  I didn’t recognize Him.  He was sustaining me at that moment, already having planned the redemption of my tragedy, knowing down the road that He would enable me to trust Him for healing. He was sovereign and active, weaving together every thread of my story.  I just couldn’t see Him.  Consequently, I misjudged Him.  I maligned His name by accusing Him of being absent and indifferent. I’ve spent much of my last ten years repenting.

Where do you need the faith to believe Him today?  Where do you know His Word but stumble in disbelief?  Ask Him for the grace to believe, the grace to obey, the grace to apply it.  The Word is foolishness without the enabling of the Spirit.

I know Your Word but there are times I just can’t believe it’s for me.  Open my eyes to see You.  Open my heart to receive Your voice.  Without Your grace, I am defeated.  With Your grace, I will soar on eagle’s wings.  In Jesus’ name, Amen

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. John 19:30

My sister Nancy, an attorney from upstate New York, finds the best stuff to read. Yesterday, she turned up a pamphlet written by Jon Oswalt, O.T. professor from Asbury Seminary, on some of the little-known happenings at Passover. On any given day, 2 lambs were slaughtered in the temple; one in the morning and one in the evening. On Passover however, 250,000 lambs were slaughtered. I can’t fathom such a scene.  Here’s the quote from Oswalt’s writing. “At Passover time, rivers of blood poured off the high altar, so much so that there was a gutter system under the altar designed to carry that blood away into the Kidron Valley. Think about it: if Jesus waded across the Kidron on his way from the Upper Room to Gethsemane, he may have waded through blood up to his knees.”

Knowing that this would have been a yearly reality for the Jewish people, I’m surprised that they had long periods of disobedience, and subsequent captivity, given the horrific scenes they saw at each Passover. It was visually evident how God felt about sin. Such carnage was proof. Oh, but what a moment when Jesus said, “It is finished.” No more sacrifices. No more bloodshed. He was the Lamb, the once and for all Lamb, who didn’t just cover sins. No, He removed them completely.

I can’t help but remember how I felt one morning when reading of the first sacrifice in Genesis. The lamb that might have been Adam and Eve’s pet, a pet they had probably named, had to be put to death because of their sin. It was a moment when innocence was shattered and they saw a glimpse into the implications of the fall. Perhaps they felt, on a visceral level, what the crack in their idyllic world really meant.

No wonder Jesus said, ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.’ We look back thousands of years to remember stories, and the Person of Christ, to be impacted profoundly. I contend that it would be impossible to be moved without the very Spirit of the Living Christ living inside; empowering our memory, fueling our spiritual eyesight, and sharing His own emotions over His own death and resurrection. By His grace and the power of His Spirit, I am able to feel the impact. I am able to call it horrific and realize that it was His love for me that propelled Him to finish what He came to do without compromise.

My sin. None of it is small. You were, and are, my Lamb for all eternity. Amen

The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? ¹⁶ Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”  When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated.  Luke 13:15-17

No one likes to be shown up.  Ever had a family member who needed to ‘one-up’ everyone else’s stories?  It was nearly impossible to share anything exciting because before you finished your story, that person had already figured out how to top it.  They didn’t listen well. They were preoccupied with how they could remain the center of attention.

There is a story recorded in Luke where this dynamic was evident.  The Pharisees criticized Jesus for healing on the Sabbath but when He answered their confrontational questions, His holiness was on full display. They were humiliated.  Unable to cover their sin, they felt exposed and became angry. His perfection burned like fire against the grain of their own self-righteousness.

I am not perfect; only God is.  I can spend a lifetime running from this truth, trying to justify myself in others’ eyes to heighten their perception of me.  Or, I can own the truth of my sinful condition.  The real question is this:  Is it safe to be exposed for what I am before a righteous God?  The answer is yes.  It’s frees me in every way possible to accept the undeserved gifts of love, forgiveness, and redemption.  It underscores the truth of the Gospel that what I have, in Christ, has not been earned.  What I have, He has freely given because His nature is to love and lavish grace upon the undeserving.

The next question is also critical.  Is it safe to admit to others that I’m flawed?  Yes.  But I will only dare risk authenticity when I am secure in God’s unconditional love for me.  If I remain a ‘respect junkie’, I will forever hide behind the facade of perfection.

Anyone who is not yet overwhelmed with the love of God still strives to redeem themselves before men.  Their world begins and ends with who it is that thinks highly of them.

Approval, respect, admiration.  Break whatever addictions remain.  Amen

And Œwas declared to be the Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Romans 1:3-4

Jesus had always been God and He had always been powerful.  But when He came as a babe, flesh veiled that power.  It wasn’t until the resurrection that the earth was reminded again of the power of the One who had lived for three decades and then died a criminal’s death on a cross. Through the empty tomb, the ‘Son of God in power’ was again on full display.

What we have to remember is this; life in the flesh just veiled His power; it didn’t erase it.  He held it in check, by choice, through His obedience to His Father’s greater plan.  Jesus didn’t come to earth to set up His kingdom; He came to take care of our sin problem.  We needed a Savior first, then a King.

The Jews who were being crushed under the Roman government were so wanting a King to deliver them from their oppressors that they couldn’t appreciate the gift this Savior was giving them. Pain obscures our vision too.  What we often need the most is not what we think we need.  That which crushes our heart today can so fill our field of vision that deliverance from it is all that we pray for.  When God doesn’t cooperate by removing our version of the ‘Roman boot of oppression’, we can easily become disillusioned, just like the people of Jesus’ day.

One day, Jesus will set up His kingdom.  He won’t wear a crown of thorns but a royal crown.  His robe won’t be torn to pieces and sold as souvenirs.  The trail of His robe will fill the temple.  In the meantime, you can trust your Savior and King to give you what you need most, even when your own vision is obscured by your flesh.

When you’re frustrated and your eyes are filled with the tears of misunderstanding, Jesus knows.  He experienced the limitations and temptations of the flesh and knows the difficult path of faith and trust inside these mortal bodies.

You are my Savior and my King.  Amen

The Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor.  The Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.  John 18:28

The chief priests and Pharisees wanted Jesus out of the picture.  He threatened everything their appetites desired.  They could have taken Jesus into an angry mob for him to be stoned but that didn’t serve their purposes.  They didn’t want the scandal of that resting at their front door.  Instead, they would use the justice system of the Roman government for their own gain.

Jesus was delivered to the Praetorium, where Pilate sat in power.  Instead of going in to Pilot to make their case, the Jewish leaders stayed outside so they could go to the Passover.  They didn’t want to defile themselves by publicly participating in the death of the Son of God yet they would defile the Passover?  They had the gall to hide behind a sacred ritual.  They presumed to celebrate all that the Passover meant by plotting to kill the very one whose blood would be applied to the doorposts of humanity.

I look for my own sinful incongruities.  Am I hiding behind what is sacred?  Do I defile the very things I say I believe in by acting in ways that contradict them?  Do I mock the crown Jesus wears with an insubordinate attitude toward His Father?  Do I call Jesus ‘Master’ and then use Christian freedom recklessly?

Jesus put his life on the line to win our freedom.  He faced his accusers.  Across the world today, there are believers facing persecution because they have stood to align with Jesus before their tormentors.  Do I have what it takes to be one of them?

I’m sorry, Jesus, that you stood alone before Pilate.  Amen

“Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, [and] preaching the gospel of the kingdom …”  Matthew 9:35

A good father does not belittle his toddler for not walking like an adult.  When he pulls himself up to the nearest coffee table, is unsteady on his feet, and then begins to take a step or two before tumbling to the floor, he is not shamed.  He is still a baby and nothing more is expected of him.

If I live before others, I am a spiritual teacher, even a parent to those who are new to faith.  Do I cause those who listen to me to feel disrespected?  Am I condescending in my attitude?  Do I make them feel that I have arrived at some higher platform of truth?  Are they given the impression that they are behind me?  If I need to feel superior and then use others to fuel my narcissistic trip, I need to confront my own sinful heart before God.  I will do more harm than good at my podium of life.

As a child, I grew up under the preaching of one who yelled at his congregation.  Everyone was shamed, weekly, even his wife and children.  We were so used to being his whipping post that we did not know that the Gospel failed to take root in our hearts.  It wasn’t until I married, left home, and experienced the hearts of a few true shepherds, that I realized my heart had been closed off for years.  I had instinctively protected myself from the pastor’s angry words, but in so doing, any remnants of truth in his message couldn’t penetrate my spirit.  Traces of spiritual abuse still linger to this day and my soul is sensitive to these kinds of environments.  It doesn’t take much for old feelings to surface.

As one who has been called to teach, I pray that you sense my affection.  I trust that as you read these daily devotionals, your heart is safe to take in the powerful message of Christ.  Pray for me, that I would assert my spiritual authority with respect, with confidence, and with a power that is only of Christ.

Whatever I know of Your truth today, Lord, I know only because of Your grace.  Help me entrust these seeds to others with humility. Amen

Therefore Jesus said to the Twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you?” John 6:67

Few things are more painful than expressing your love only to get no response in return.  The first few times, you are able to forgive quite easily. You believe that, eventually, your love will warm the heart of the other person. But there are those who, even over the long haul, choose not to let anyone in the door. The problem may not be you but them. Their heart is closed and impaired. For some reason in their personal history, they were rendered incapable of extending a connection. If this person is your spouse or your child, the pain is searing.

It’s easy to succumb to the temptation to try harder. You mount a life-long crusade to shower the person with even more love and attention. You believe that more is better. But more is only more threatening. Keep banging on a closed door and you’ll only push the person on the other side to build more layers of protection.

Will that person in your life eventually open up to your love? I can’t say; only God knows. But prayer is the only way to weather the relationship. God usually has us back up, dial back the intensity, and allow Him to do what only He can do to bring them to us.

The purpose of this devotional is not to focus on the one who refuses to be loved. It is to minister to you if you are the one who loves and gets nothing back. Years of unresponsiveness wear on your soul. Where do you find the grace to keep loving? A gracious Father. Where do you find the wisdom to know when to approach and when to take a step back? A wise Father. Where do you find someone who understands what it’s like to care for ungrateful and unresponsive people? From a God who also pursues to see few respond. He gave His own life to prove His love but the majority is unimpressed and even hostile to the rare gift He offers.

If I move toward God with my broken heart, He moves toward me. If I ask for help, He doesn’t turn away, He responds. He is a responsive Father. Declarations of love, and of need, are met with strong emotion. I must never forget that when I’m not wanted here, I’m wanted by the One who made me. Longings for intimacy and returned affection are met in the arms of my Savior.

Your love was not cheap, Lord. It was expensive and I respond with my whole heart. Amen

Jesus’ prayer, just hours before His arrest, are like famous last words.  This is what was on His heart as He prayed for His disciples.  Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.  John 17:17.   He loved His Father, loved the truth, and wanted scripture to live in His friends no matter what circumstances they would experience.

Some days, God’s Word feels like a feast and I treasure it.  Other days, when it convicts, I have to ask God to change my affections so that I can treasure it.

There are days when I’m prone to worry.  Do I delight in His words that address my fear?  There are moments that I’m depressed over my mistakes.  Do I take joy in His words that remind me of His daily mercies?  I’m prone to silently nurse a grudge.  Do I love His words about forgiveness?   I can easily be like a child who loves commandments that are appealing but despises those which tell me something I don’t want to hear.  Jesus loved and honored the Word with His whole heart and with His whole life.  He never struggled to want to love righteousness.

Every single day brings a set of circumstances that challenge my love for God’s ways.  I will not instinctively love His Word when it corrects me or causes me to stretch out of my comfort zone.  When Jesus beckons me to move out of a familiar set of emotions that aren’t good for me, though they are as comfortable as my favorite old shirt and a pair of jeans, I need to understand that the outfit is really a set of grave clothes.  Jesus calls every child to come out of the tomb into resurrection life.  Just like Him.  That sounds inspirational and appealing until I find how resistant I am to the Light.  When it exposes my darkness, I can be offended and never get over it.   With my poor choices, I show that I prefer to live in my tomb.  The ways of the flesh are the ways of death.  I know this, yet they’re just so ingrained in this fallen nature.  I must ask God, many times a day, to change my heart so that I embrace His ways.

As I trust God enough to push through my offense into obedience, I realize that I have found freedom.  Delighting, then, comes easily.

I need Your grace to desire Your Word every single time.   In Jesus name,  Amen