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Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” John 4:10

How does Jesus relate to someone weighed down with shame? He intentionally seeks them out and moves toward them with honor.

He expects intermittent eye contact. He expects to see someone braced, hidden in fear, expecting contempt instead of love. He invites them to come out of the shadows. He always has. Remember the lengths he went to just to reach one woman? He entered Samaria on a mission. He defied racial lines, gender lines, and moral lines to sit beside a women steeped in shame. He believed she was worth His time.

He did the same for a woman caught in adultery. Her accusers wanted a public stoning. Jesus intervened. He stooped to the ground, fingered the dust, and made room for a very awkward silence. Stones dropped. Mercy stood up and prevailed. He did not ignore, nor deny, her sin, but neither did He deepen her shame. He gave her truth wrapped in honor.

Anyone who struggles with shame will retreat further if I come at them with an air of superiority. They will not be drawn to Jesus if I preach to them from a place above them, trying to fix them before I have loved them. It is love that woos. And it is love that gives me the credibility to move to a place of words.

So who near me is afraid to lift their eyes? Who has already concluded they are unlovable, unworthy, and disqualified from a future? I must ask Jesus for His heart and His wisdom. He will ask me to approach with respect. He may suggest I lower my pace. He may ask me to keep my words to a minimum. Friendship first. Honor first. Building a bridge strong enough to support the truth.

Jesus, make me a place where wounded souls do not feel smaller, but safe. Let Your mercy rule me so that so that I see others through the tenderness of the cross.Amen

To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:22-24

Do you remember The Newlywed Game? Couples were asked questions that revealed how well they really knew one another. And, not just facts, but instincts. What will he do in this situation? What would he prefer given these two choices? Etc.

It makes me wonder ~ how well do I really know Jesus? Not just being able to recall the events of His life or the doctrines I affirm, but His ways. His tone. His instincts. The movements of His heart. How did He look at people? What stirred His compassion? What awakened His anger? How did He carry Himself in the presence of weakness, shame, sorrow, and betrayal?

This matters because we become like the One we love. The One that moves our heart the most shapes us. If I worship a Christ I barely know, my transformation will remain vague and shallow. But if I walk with Him slowly enough to really watch Him, sanctification begins to feel less like strain and more like surrender. I put off the old self as I fall in love with the new.

So for the next week, we’ll take a long look at Jesus.

How did He relate to those who lived with shame?
How did He handle the weakness of His disciples?
How did He navigate the relationship with His Father?
How did He face the devil without losing peace?

And what will happen to us as we watch Him?

I do not think we will come away untouched. I think we will love Him more. I think we will be comforted, convicted, and surprised by His beauty. We might even stumble momentarily. But I think we will also see more clearly where we are unlike Him. But that too will be grace.

Jesus, give us grace to stay near enough to You to be changed. Amen

And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”  Genesis 22:7

Can you feel this pivotal moment between Isaac and Abraham?  Isaac knows there’s going to be some kind of sacrifice.  The wood is ready, but where is the lamb?   With this question on his mind, he turns to ask his father.  Was it a casual inquiry or was he beginning to probe the unthinkable?

These kinds of moments are awful to live through.  Our gut knows that something is dreadfully wrong and we look to someone wise to tell us that this isn’t what we fear it is.  We feel like a child.  And we are.  We turn to the only wise Father to voice our questions.  Like Abraham, He welcomes us.  He understands our frame.  We are safe to need Him.

To live childlike with Him, even on good days, is to secure a posture that prepares us for the hard moments when we will cry out, “Abba, Daddy!”  We know it won’t feel awkward on our tongues.  With the right theology, it will be instinctive to run home for strength. 

The world says that maturity is becoming independent.  God says that maturity is to become more childlike.  The cynicism and fear that comes with age begs us to move us away from dependence on anyone.  We must intentionally cultivate childlike faith.  Life may seem like it is unraveling but God holds the threads. 

It’s possible, and necessary, to be tethered to the Rock of Ages.  How strong the cords of Love that held us fast! 

I need nothing, and no one, more than I need You, Lord.  Amen

Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you. Hosea 10:12

Is it possible to glimpse someone’s future by watching the pattern of their life? In many ways, yes. The repeated choices of righteousness or unrighteousness begin to trace a direction. If I understand the ways of the kingdom, I can often see where a person is headed. Patterns preach. They tell the truth about what a life is moving toward. What can interrupt a dark trajectory, however, is repentance.

If someone has a history of anger and I know him well, I can usually sense what will set him off. But I can not know whether an unrepentant heart may suddenly break open before God ~ even as I can not know whether a faithful saint may one day wander. But I do know the moral architecture of Scripture. We live in a sowing-and-reaping world. Seeds become harvests. To notice the likely fruit of someone’s life is not superstition, and it is not cruelty. It is biblical discernment. At times, to see clearly is simply to agree with God about where a path leads.

That clarity becomes especially painful when the life I am watching belongs to someone I love. What do I do when I foresee a shipwreck coming? I pray. I ask God to have mercy. I ask Him to shatter the schemes of the evil one who blinds the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the glory of Christ. I ask Him to make my loved one spiritually needy enough to finally look up.

The past does not have to be the final prophet of the future. With God, the cycle can break. With God, repentance can turn a life around at the deepest level. With God, there is forgiveness, mercy, and a clean canvas on which grace can begin to paint again. He is able to redeem what looked certain, rewrite what seemed inevitable, and bring beauty out of what had all the markings of ruin.

Jesus, thank You for mercy that interrupts judgment, forgiveness that breaks dark patterns, and grace that gives a soul a future again. Amen

“My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12:9

Last night I had a dream. I was in a large auditorium filled with strangers, though here and there were faces I loved—dear friends, even my parents. On the stage sat a grand piano under the glow of a single spotlight. It became clear that I was about to give a concert. And yet there had been no rehearsal and no prepared program. In spite of that, I was aware of a holy calm.

I climbed the stairs, sat at the piano bench, and waited for the opening words. Then they came: There is a current of grace. God’s grace. And when you find it, you can ride it instead of fighting it. You can lift your feet and let the Spirit carry you. From there, the music, the words, the atmosphere, everything seemed gathered into the current. Time disappeared.

For those of us who have lived much of our lives on a stage, performing becomes a familiar companion. I have known it as a pianist, flutist, singer, and Bible teacher. It is second nature to me. But the stage can also tutor the soul in the wrong things. A life in public can become a long hallway lined with others’ opinions, and it is a suffocating place to live.

Grace, however, is the holy current that moves beneath weakness, beneath inadequacy, beneath all the places where I don’t feel like I am enough. I do not have to thrash in that river. I do not have to impress anyone in my own strength. I can lift my feet and let myself be borne by the life of Another.

In this current, I’m called to write devotionals. Each morning feels like stepping onto a stage with no guarantee except this: His grace is enough. His thoughts are better than mine. His current still runs. My part is not to force revelation, but to enter the river.

Jesus, teach us to know the feel of Your current. Make Your grace so familiar, so unmistakable, that the moment we drop our feet back into the riverbed and begin resisting You, we feel the strain of it. Amen

By faith, after Moses was born, he was hidden by his parents for three months, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they didn’t fear the king’s edict. Hebrews 11:23

Fear is one of Satan’s oldest and sharpest weapons against the children of God. Because we were not created for evil, darkness unsettles us. Cruelty feels foreign. We cannot find our way through its maze or make sense of it. No wonder Scripture says so often, Do not be afraid. God keeps repeating it because fear so easily becomes the atmosphere we breathe. I think I’m finally getting the message that I should be able to encounter evil without being moved to terror. That does not mean evil becomes less evil. It means God becomes weightier.

This small verse about Moses’ parents has escaped me. Pharaoh had issued a horrifying decree: every Hebrew baby boy was to be drowned. And yet Yocheved carried a son in her womb and did not live under the king’s edict as though it were the highest word over her life. She hid Moses after he was born, and when she could hide him no longer, she made a bold and costly plan, one that would eventually place him in Pharaoh’s own household. No wonder she is remembered for faith.

Her courage was immense in the eyes of God.Threats from the powerful can paralyze. They can create an atmosphere of dread that seeps into the bones of the weak. Yocheved teaches us what unshaken trust looks like. She hid her baby. She saw the beauty of her son. She discerned that this child’s life mattered in the purposes of God. And somewhere beneath her planning, her tears, and her risk-taking, there was confidence. The king’s decree was not ultimate. God was.

Darkness still flexes its muscles. We are not always able to tell which threats are empty and which are not. There will always come a moment that makes even the strong tremble. In that hour, faith becomes a lifeline. And whether I can trust God in the dark will depend, in large part, on whether I have learned to trust Him in the light. Faith is not improvised in the crisis. It is cultivated beforehand. The time to prepare for the dark is while the light is still shining.

I refuse to finish my life with fear winning. Keep training me. Amen

Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to be his wife. And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived.  Genesis 25:20-21

God’s chosen family stood once again under the shadow of barrenness. History was repeating itself. God told Abraham that he would father many nations, yet Sarah’s womb stayed silent for years. Then, God intervened, and Isaac was born. But when Isaac took Rebekah as his wife, the promise seemed to enter the same wilderness all over again. Rebekah was barren. The word of God hung over an empty cradle.

I know that kind of tension. There have been seasons when God clearly led me in a particular direction. He confirmed it in ways I could not deny. He opened the door and I stepped through in faith. But then, things fell apart. Prayer felt like it was falling to the ground. The life I expected did not appear. And in that silence, I was tempted to gather up all my ingenuity and force the promise to bloom. But I knew that the best I could produce was an Ishmael, not something breathed by God. Holy callings do not mature under the heat of human striving.

Perhaps you are living inside that same paradox now. God called you to something brand new. He made the way clear. You reordered your life in obedience. And now everything feels eerily barren. Dave Wilkerson called it the death of a vision. Many true callings pass through a temporary graveyard. They enter the severe mercy of apparent lifelessness, where no amount of pushing can produce fruit, and where all our small acts of self-salvation are exposed for what they are.

But maybe this, too, is part of God’s kindness. He is making sure the calling stays sacred, unpolluted by fleshly ambition. If I am standing in a place that feels dead, the wrong thing is to force a resurrection. The right thing is to return to the posture that honors Him most ~ rest, worship, and waiting that still expects Him to speak life.

Lord, today I borrow Solomon’s prayer: I am but a little child and do not know which way to go. Lord, keep me from birthing what You have not breathed. 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

Jon Oswalt, an Old Testament professor from Asbury Seminary, wrote about some little-known happenings at Passover.  He said that on any given day, two 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 it, can you?   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.  What must they have done to their hearts and consciences to be able to cope with the traumatic scenes each year?

Fast forward to the cross. Oh, what a moment when Jesus said, “It is finished.”  Did His mother understand the implications of His words? Did John and the few others who stood nearby? It was not mere commentary on life being over. In time, they would have a theological peg on which to hang the finished work of the cross. No more sacrifices!  No more bloodshed!

Fix my heart at the cross until I live in the freedom of what Your finished work has secured for me. Help my unbelief. Amen

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

Every family has its cast of characters. Mine was no exception. My parents were both quiet, but my extended family carried a very different energy. Even as a child, I could sense what mattered most to many of them. They wanted to be admired. They had to know more than anyone else in the room, to be right, to have the last word. They loved being clever, entertaining, unforgettable. They took pride in owning the nicest car, the most manicured yard, and they were quick to measure those who did not meet their standards. It did not escape me, even then, that their homes sat high in the hollows, looking down on the valley below. It felt like a parable.

As a quiet child, I watched carefully and made an inward vow. I will never be like that. But pride is subtle. It can dress itself in silence just as easily as in showmanship. So I began shaping myself in opposition to what I saw. I withheld my opinions, even when I knew the answer. I squirmed in the spotlight, not wanting to resemble those who seemed so hungry for it. I avoided arguments, not always because I was humble, but because I wanted no part in competing. I spent much of my childhood observing, evaluating, and quietly determining to be different. Yet for all my restraint, I was still revolving around myself. I was still carefully constructing a self-image.

It would take many years for Jesus to begin to free me from it. I did not need to become like the relatives I feared, nor did I need to define myself by resisting them. Both postures kept me preoccupied with myself. Jesus was inviting me into death and resurrection, the kind that frees a person from both self-display and self-protection. I began, slowly, to understand what it means to be crucified with Christ.  Not erased but possessed by the Spirit.

Jesus did not come to be admired in the way the world understands it. He did not need to dominate a room, prove His brilliance, or shame others with His wisdom. He came to call sinners home, to forgive the repentant, and to pour Himself out without vanity. He was strong without self-promotion and full of authority without the slightest trace of ego.

That is the life I want. Not loud, and not merely quiet. Not showy and not self-consciously restrained. Just free. Free enough to forget myself because I am captivated.  His beauty quiets any need to perform, compare, defend, or withdraw. Love has turned my face in a better direction. 

Jesus, how I long for your divine nature to shine through me like light through a window. Consume what is false, weak, and self-made. Amen

“Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” In response, Abraham prophesied, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together”. Genesis 22:7-8

I’ve waited so very long for God to answer some prayers. So have you. We wait, sometimes for years, sometimes for generations, and the waiting tests us till it hurts. We grow tired. We question His attention. We wonder if His love has thinned in the silence of perceived inactivity.

From Abraham’s question on Mt. Moriah to the hour the true Lamb was offered, centuries passed. Heaven seemed to take its time. So today, I don’t believe we should travel first to the stable. Let’s go to the hill where the Lamb was crucified.

The long ache of Scripture was finally answered ~ not with a cradle, but with a cross. Good Friday gave its terrible, beautiful reply. to the question, “Where is the lamb?” There He was. He was not wrapped in swaddling cloths, but was stripped and wounded. He was not cradled in His mother’s arms, but lifted up on rough wood.

Abraham waited for Him. Israel longed for Him. And every restless, guilty, tormented heart has been starving for Him too. Sin has hollowed us out, leaving us shallow in our souls, We are ashamed, agitated, and unable to quiet the incessant self-condemnation. I faced an onslaught only yesterday. And most every culture across the world has conceived some ritual to try to rid themselves of their guilt in order to please the gods. We ache to be guiltless.

Good Friday was where bitterness and beauty met. The darkest hour became the holy ground. The cross stood in the shadow of every promise God ever made, and there, in blood and grief, the promise was kept. Forgiveness of sin. Peace with God.

Let the blood of My Lamb speak more loudly than my guilt, my waiting, and my fear. Amen