22 JAN 23 Sunday: A Closer Walk Devotional
“Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people-blind, lame, or paralyzed-lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”” John 5:2-6
Growing up in the 70s, we had all kinds of memorable commercials and jingles to promote everything. One of those was McDonald’s, “you deserve a break today”. The idea that we “deserve” something has become an American value or virtue. In the minds of many people, they are not just looking for a break, it is demanded.
We carry that mindset over to God. We deserve to receive, fill in the blank because he is a loving God. We presume on God’s grace and mercy, but don’t understand that he has mercy where he wills. The story in John shows Jesus pass by the masses that needed help and he only healed one. What about the others? Didn’t they deserve healing? Well, no.
Mercy is not getting what you deserve and grace is getting what you don’t deserve in the positive. Mercy and grace are dispensed not by our desire, but solely on God’s sovereign choice and his good pleasure. We have done nothing to warrant God’s blessing, only his wrath. So, erase the “deserve” from your vocabulary.
Do you desire to receive God’s mercy and grace?
Then confess your sins, repent of them, and put your trust in what Jesus did for you on the cross. Then and only then, will grace fall like rain on your life as you become a child of God.
Reading Plan: Psalm 63:1-11; Isa. 47:1-15; Heb. 10:19-31; John 5:2-18
Daily Office Year 1
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