319. He Knows There Isn't A Simple Explanation

John 9:3

When something terrible happens to you, do you automatically assume it’s because of something wrong you did? If something doesn’t go your way, is your first instinct to look back at the week you just lived and review the sins you did that you haven’t asked forgiveness for? It’s the most natural thing in the world to assume that bad things happen as a result or a punishment for your sin, but it’s not that simple. If hard times were just a result of sin, we could clean up our act and avoid difficulty and suffering, but we know that isn’t the way things work. God isn’t keeping a tally of your sin and dealing out appropriate punishments for those bad choices and attitudes as a way to get you to step in line. If you want proof, look at Jesus who never sinned, but suffered more than we can imagine. No, the punishment for sin is not a bad day, a car wreck, a disease or financial ruin. The punishment for sin is eternal separation from God and Jesus paid it on your behalf so that you can be forgiven forever. When bad things happen, there is no simple explanation and no place to easily point a finger of blame. One time Jesus saw a man born blind and the disciples asked Jesus who sinned, this guy or his parents? Whose fault is this? Jesus told them it’s not like that. The problem of pain isn’t an equation you work out with your own guilt in tow. In fact, Jesus paid to remove your guilt forever. Suffering is complicated, but it’s not a penalty. Whatever happens, you are not being punished. That is the Good News. 

318. He Can't Rest While You Hurt

John 5:17

How does Jesus feel when you’re going through a hard time? Does He care? Could you know if He does? What if it feels like He’s not around? What if it feels like He’s too busy or you’re too insignificant? What if He did, though? What if Jesus - God in the flesh - really, truly cared about the pains of mind and heart you feel? What if His Almighty, Eternal Heart was actually and deeply moved by the fissures and cracks in your own? Just take a minute and think on that. Whoa. The heart of God moved by mine. His vast heart trembling while mine breaks. Oh, friends - if that’s true, it’s the most unbelievably wonderful thing that could possibly be. If that’s true, it means my pain isn’t random or meaningless. It means I’m not alone. If Jesus feels it with me, maybe I can face it for a little while longer. The question is, can we know that’s true? Does He feel it with us? One time Jesus met a man who had been paralyzed for thirty eight years. He healed this man and told him to take up his mat and walk, which the man did. The only problem was that this healing took place on a Sabbath - the day of rest. The religious leadership came after Jesus, questioning Him about breaking this ancient law, and Jesus said, “My Father is always at work to this very day, and I too am working.” In other words, the heart of God can’t take a rest when the one He loves is hurting. He feels your hurt. In fact, He won’t even take His own day off when you are in a hard time. He’s at work.

317. His Death Gives You Infinite Value

Luke 23:43

Do your personal failures have a devastating impact on you? I think most honest people would say that they do. I think most of us are spending quite a bit of time, energy and emotion scrambling for significance. We want to make a difference, or we want the fact that we were here to have made a difference. So many of us are desperately trying to answer the question, “Why do I matter?” and we don’t have lots of satisfactory evidence. The truth is, my worth comes from the fact that God made me in His image and Jesus died for me; but honestly, I don’t believe that all of the time. So often my struggle for personal worth and the debilitating power of my failure shows that I look to my own achievements as the measure of my value. Sometimes, in order to sort this stuff out, you have to consider an extreme case - an example so obvious, it’s not open for debate. When Jesus was on the cross, there was a criminal crucified beside Him who said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” This man had nothing. He was dying the most horrible and humiliating death possible because of his disaster of a past. He had no present influence and no future prospects. He had wasted his life and yet, he was lobbying for a place in Heaven. Based on what? He had nothing to offer. His only appeal was to the mercy and love of Jesus. We’re all in the same boat. We bring nothing besides our need and that’s all Jesus wants. You are valuable because He bled for you. He died for the world, yes; but, He died for you.

316. He Knows We See Dimly

1 Corinthians 13:12

Do you know what it’s like to completely lose your cool and go off on someone, only to find out later that you misread the situation and made a total idiot of yourself? I know I do. If handling situations poorly because of a misunderstanding was an olympic sport, I would have gold medals all over my house. I doubt that I’m the only one, too. We all overreact. We all get really upset. We all know what it’s like to think we have someone figured out, form an opinion about them and then find out later we were totally wrong. The hard thing about this is, we all know that the most important thing is love, but at the same time, we aren’t always very good at loving people. In 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul famously says, “If I have not love, I am nothing.” The really interesting thing is that at the end of that chapter, he goes onto say that right now, we don’t see everything very clearly. He says, “we see only a reflection, as in a mirror.” Back in the day, they didn’t have nice, clear mirrors as we do. They looked in polished sheets of bronze, which gives a very poor reflection. In fact, the word translated ‘reflection’ is actually the word “enigma” which means a puzzle. We are trying to love, but we don’t always understand things very well. Sometimes life is an enigma, a puzzle, and Jesus gets that. I want to grow in love. I want to get better at loving people and responding to people, and while I’m in that process, it’s comforting to know that Jesus understands the fact that I don’t see everything clearly yet.

315. He's Where You Belong

Luke 15:27

I think one of the worst feelings in the human experience is the feeling of not belonging. Do you know how it feels to be in a room full of people you just don’t fit in with? Whether or not it’s true, you feel these staring eyes full of that loaded question, “What are you doing here?” Not being wanted or picked for something is a terrible feeling to experience, but knowing you don’t belong might be even worse, because it includes all that rejection plus the feeling of personal failure which says, “You’re not like us. It’s not just that we don’t want you, it’s that you don’t have it. You’re not one of us.” That is why one of the sweetest elements of knowing Jesus is the intimacy of His love. In Scripture, the picture is of a Groom who is overwhelmed by His bride. Jesus sees you as His very own love - the one He dreams of and longs for. The picture is of a dad waiting for the return of His lost son. Every day he waits on the porch for some sign of the one He loves coming back home. Knowing Jesus isn’t about religious beliefs and rituals. It’s about coming home to the heart who knows you and has a bedroom light on just for you. It’s about Someone kind and good saying to your heart, “Come back. You belong here. This is the life and the family you were made to know.” You’re not some freak who just doesn’t belong. There isn’t a thing that you don’t have. Truth is, there is a love that was made for you. There’s a heart that is filled up and overjoyed by having you. You belong.

314. He's Not Thinking What You're Thinking

Mark 5:35

Have you ever given up on a prayer because it wasn’t answered your way? Sure. I’d say we’ve all done that. Have you taken it further, though? Have you ever followed that up by playing all kinds of mental guessing games over why it wasn’t answered your way? Have you ever thought to yourself that God didn’t do this thing because He didn’t care, because He has bigger fish to fry or just because He’s mad at you? Have you ever wondered whether God is tired or annoyed by you and your requests? I know I have felt that way before. I guess what we’re really doing is interpreting our confusion or hurt by assigning a certain emotion to God. We think, “The only way this makes sense is if He doesn’t care about me, so that has to be it.” Then, we see our relationship with God through that lens. One time a man asked Jesus to come to his house and heal his sick daughter. Jesus agreed and they started making their way back to the house when some guys showed up from the house and said it was too late. The little girl had died. They said, “Why bother the teacher anymore?” In their minds, the only explanation for this tragedy was that Jesus was too busy to be bothered by it. Thing is, these guys completely misjudged Jesus. They put words in His mouth. He wasn’t bothered by the request of this confused, brokenhearted dad. He was compassionate and had an unbelievable plan. I know it’s hard to trust Jesus when you’re in the middle of the dark, but what if He’s not thinking what you’re thinking? What if He’s really on your side?

313. He's Doing The Impossible

John 3:4

Okay, you’ve done the things you’ve done. You’ve made the missteps you’ve made. The person you are today is the result of those decisions and situations. You are who your life has made you, right? In some ways, it’s too late to think about being anything other than what you are and have been, right? I mean, it’s not just as simple as the past being in the past, because every time you look in the mirror, you’re seeing the results of that past. You are who you are because of who you’ve been. But what if that’s not the whole story? What if you could start over? What if you could be a whole new person that isn’t related to the you of your past, but is more truly and essentially you? One time Jesus met with an old man named Nicodemus in the middle of the night to talk about this question. I think they probably met to talk at night because this old man was famous and powerful and wouldn’t want to be seen needing the help and wisdom of a young, poor and hunted man. Jesus said no one sees the Kingdom of God without being born again. Nicodemus was wondering what that could possibly mean. How can an old man start again? It’s as ridiculous as your mom giving birth to you again. But Jesus was serious. The Spirit of God is up to something. In a very real and supernatural way, people who love Jesus get to be something new. The past is gone and your heart is washed and you get to be a true and real you that is completely brand new. Jesus is doing the impossible - the thing we most want.

312. He's In Love With You

Song Of Songs 2:10

Sometimes your spiritual life feels like the most dry and lifeless thing in the world, right? There are days when you wake up thinking that the only reason you’re towing the line on this Christian thing is a blah sort of ‘what-else-is-there’ attitude. If you’re honest, you don’t feel as though you’re giving a whole lot to Jesus and when it comes down to it, you’re not getting much feedback from Him. Why is that? Why do you have days and weeks where you just don’t feel very much? Well, of course there are tons of possible explanations and some of them are bound to be beyond our ability to understand, but I know for a fact that one reason people struggle through spiritual dry spells is that they just don’t see Jesus the right way. Maybe that’s you. I know it’s been me a ton of times. I know there are times when I see him pulling me over, running the blue lights and sirens, writing me citations for all my sins. There are times I see Him coldly marking endless tallies in a giant ledger while I cower underneath the disappointed eyes staring through the glasses sliding halfway down His nose. I know these are cliche pictures, but I think we still see them. The truth is, Jesus is like a teenager hopelessly in love, slipping notes into your locker, holding open your car door, carrying your books to class. He’s tripping over His words because His heart just skipped a beat when you walked into the room. Jesus isn’t mad or distant. He’s in love with you. He’s pursuing you passionately, saying, “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me.”

311. He Cares About Your Love For Him

Luke 23:53

You know how you look at your own life and heart sometimes and just feel so low down and unworthy? And I mean, we are totally unworthy, of course. We don’t deserve the love of God and we could never earn it. God’s love comes to us as a pure gift and we could never change His mind about it or make Him love us more or less by what we do. And let’s be honest - sometimes that’s tough to swallow. We’d like to give something back, right? It’s not that we really want to earn our keep with God or anything because deep down we know we couldn’t pull that off, but is there something, anything we could do? It turns out the answer is yes, and not only that, but when you do this, it means a lot to Jesus. At the end of the book of Luke there is a character who comes out of nowhere named Joseph of Arimathea. After Jesus died on the cross, he went to Pilate the governor and asked permission to take Jesus’ body down from the cross and bury it. Joseph was a rich and powerful man, and stepping out like this was a bold and risky move for him, both socially and politically. Pilate gave Joseph permission and he took Jesus’ body, washed it, prepared it and then buried our Lord in a tomb he purchased. No one even knew he believed in Jesus, but when it counted, he stood up and loved the Lord. When you love Jesus no matter what it costs you, it doesn’t earn your spot in Heaven or seal your forgiveness, but it means a lot to Jesus. He loves your love for Him.