While we meet a tremendous number of people in our lifetime, we sometimes feel particularly privileged to know certain individuals, such as a godly role model, a childhood hero, or someone who was there to help in our time of need. Still, as wonderful as it is to have these distinctive people in our lives, the greatest privilege of all is to know God. Even knowing the most exceptional people can never bring us the joy and contentment for which we yearn. And yet, we frequently chase after worldly acceptance because we forget the treasure of truly knowing the living God.
Oftentimes people get saved and remain satisfied with this first step—knowing a few facts about God is enough for them. If they are asked, “Do you know God?” most will say that they do. But there’s a vast difference between knowing facts about God and personally relating to Him. Believers should continually be growing closer to the Father—always learning more about who He is and what He considers important.
When people go through life depending on themselves, they never really know God—He will reveal Himself to a heart that is honest and transparent, not to one that’s full of pride and arrogance. It is in our brokenness and helplessness that we discover who the Lord is.
Do you have a genuine hunger in your heart to know God? If so, ask Him, “Who are You? What are You like?” Then open yourself to Him, not for His sake—He already knows you perfectly—but for your own sake. By spending time with Him, you’ll discover you are privileged indeed.
The heavenly Father wants His children to talk with Him. Jesus gave an invitation to speak with God about anything. He said that if you have a need, ask; if you seek answers, you will find them; if you want opportunities to open up in your life, knock and He will respond (Matt. 7:7-8). Even so, there are believers who do not bother communicating with the Lord, except in emergencies.
Forsaking prayer is costly to a person’s well-being. Those who will not make time every day for God are on a slippery slope. They slide through weariness, discouragement, and doubt, only to land in a testimony-damaging situation. Today we will focus on the first phase—weariness. Tomorrow we will examine the rest of the descent.
Certain situations take an emotional, physical, and spiritual toll—we call these burdens. Such low points can wear us out if we try to endure them alone. But God does not intend for that weight to fall on our shoulders. In fact, the Bible commands that those loads be cast upon Jesus Christ (Ps. 55:22). “Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden,” cries David in Psalm 68:19. Remember, He is doing all the work to straighten out your circumstances anyway. So there’s no point in both Him and you carrying that weight.
Hauling all our worries and cares around is wearying because we are not built for such loads. In God’s design, His strength fills the believer to capacity. Picture Jesus’ shoulders just above your own—with Him bearing your problems. The burden does not disappear, but it feels blessedly lighter when you hand it over to the Lord.
After the crucifixion, a wealthy Jewish leader named Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate if he could have Jesus’ body to bury it. Surely Joseph grasped the huge risk in requesting Rome’s permission to provide proper burial for a criminal convicted of treason. Undoubtedly he realized that his reputation and status in the religious community would be endangered.
What gave Joseph, a secret follower of Jesus, the courage to come forward while the Lord’s closest friends stepped back in fear? Was it because Joseph had been living expectantly, on the lookout for God? (See Mark 15:43 MSG.)
Christ’s sacrifice changes everything—both our forever destiny and our daily life—allowing us to live with a sense of boundless hope and resolute anticipation. Yet sometimes I wonder, How often do I ignore, overlook, fail or refuse to recognize God’s presence? Am I truly on the lookout for Him? How expectantly am I living, between “the already but not yet”?
Christ’s sacrifice changes everything—allowing us to live with a sense of boundless hope and resolute anticipation.
These are important questions, today and every day of my life. Because where Jesus appears and how Jesus thinks and what Jesus says oftentimes aren’t what I expect. And I’m not alone. Consider Joseph of Arimathea, Peter and John, and the women who discovered the empty tomb. Despite Jesus’ guarantee, they did not anticipate His death. And after He was buried, what did they expect? Their shock and disbelief when He reappeared provide the answer.
Years ago I received a letter from a friend struggling between the already but not yet. “All I can do,” he wrote, “is live each moment as it comes and be aware of God in it.” His conclusion: “I want to let struggle, grief, and hurt exist side by side with joy, peace, and hope.”
It may not be easy to live expectantly between present and future realities, but I believe it’s the best approach. A mom grieving the death of her son explained, “I’m discovering how grief and hope dance together, often exchanging the lead. Yet without Christ’s sacrifice, there would be no hope—and what a cruel dance that would be.”
Now, that’s living expectantly!
by Fil Anderson
In Old Testament times, people atoned for sin through repeated animal sacrifices. But that was a temporary measure, since the blood of bulls and goats covered sin without removing it (Heb. 10:4). The offering of animals, however, pointed to the ultimate solution: Jesus’ shed blood on the cross—the perfect once-for-all sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins.
Calvary wasn’t some improvised fix to correct the original system; Jesus giving up His life for us had been the plan all along (Matt. 20:28). Scripture reveals that God was never fully satisfied with burnt offerings, no matter how much they cost the person seeking forgiveness (Heb. 10:5-7). To eradicate sin, absolute perfection had to be offered. That’s why Jesus came (Phil. 2:7-8)—and why the cross is a reminder of the greatest sacrifice love has ever made.
To eradicate sin, absolute perfection had to be offered. That’s why Jesus came.
The cross is also an example Christ set for us. When James exhorted believers to “consider it all joy” as difficulties arise (James 1:2), he likely remembered how the Lord “for the joy set before Him endured the cross” (Heb. 12:2). Jesus said that to be His follower, one “must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For ... whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it” (Luke 9:23-24). Billy Graham explained, “It was the same as saying, ‘Come and bring your electric chair with you. Take up the gas chamber and follow Me.’ He did not have a beautiful gold cross in mind—the cross on a church steeple or on the front of your Bible. Jesus had in mind a place of execution.”
God doesn’t demand our own blood to pay for atonement but wants us to give our life in a different way—as a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1), offered up in service for His kingdom. The cross of Christ is more than the wood His body was nailed to 2,000 years ago. It’s more than a symbol, on churches or jewelry, of what Jesus did for us. The cross we carry must be a consciousness of the debt we owe God and the willingness to live—or die—for Him.
by Ann-Margret Hovsepian
Editor’s Note: The devotions for March 21st, 22nd, and 23rd focus on elements of Passover, which Jesus celebrated with His disciples the night before His crucifixion.
During that initial Last Supper, Jesus took the wine and declared, “This is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). Once again, those words would have stunned Jesus’ original hearers. Every Jew knew about a long story of covenants in which God repeated, I will be your God and you will be My people. It sounded good in theory, but one side of that covenant—our side, in case you’re wondering—perpetually botched the deal. So throughout the Bible, God kept promising there would be one more covenant, not to abolish but to fulfill the old one.
Now, with the cup of Passover wine in His hand, Jesus declared the unthinkable: That new covenant was here, right now, in Him. Jesus summarized that covenant in His micro-sermon—“This is My blood ... poured out for many.” It is for you and for me and “for many”—just as Jesus is the lamb “who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
Jesus called for our response—“Drink of it, all of you.” Not “think about it” or “try harder to earn it” but “drink it.”
Let’s place ourselves in this scene. Like the disciples, we are the ones who have fallen away. None of us are righteous, and yet we keep defending and promoting our “innocence.” Like all of the disciples, we have or soon will betray the Son of God, and yet there He is, not only eating and drinking with us, but also offering His life, His blood, for us. The words of that long-awaited new covenant from Jeremiah 31:34—“For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more”—are now being fulfilled right before our eyes.
It is a sheer gift that leads to wide-eyed wonder. But with the wine, Jesus also called for our response—“Drink of it, all of you” (Matt. 26:27 ESV). Not “think about it” or “try harder to earn it” but “drink it.” That’s what faith looks like. In other words, like the cup of wine, salvation is there for you. Jesus holds it in His hands and offers it to you. But you must believe it, open your heart, and receive it—all the way down into the center of who you are. So “Drink of it, all of you.”
by Matt Woodley
