Devotions

“And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32, NKJV).

If you want to be kindhearted and take up the towel to restore a brother or sister, you do not need to know the details of how that person got dirty. Jesus did not ask his disciples, “How did you get such filthy feet?” He wanted only to get the dust off of them. His love for them was unconditional.

Likewise, those who walk in the fullness of Jesus Christ must have this attitude of love toward those with dirty feet. We are not to ask for details. Instead, we are to say, “Let me wash your feet.”

Too often Christians want to delve into all the gory details of a situation. They come to a believer who has dirty feet, saying, “I want to wash your feet. But first tell me, what happened? How’d you get so dirty?”

At some point in the story of failure, the curious comforter realizes, “Oh my, this is worse than I thought. I can’t get involved in this.” After a few more details, he comes to the end of his puny human mercy. He judges the person as too evil or beyond help, and he drops his towel and goes his way.

Beloved, you cannot wash feet in a judge’s robes. You have to take off your self-righteous garments before you can do any cleansing. Paul says we are to be gentle and patient with all people. “And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth” (2 Timothy 2:24-25).

Paul is saying, “You must be tenderhearted with everyone, willing to wash their feet. God will have mercy on them and deliver them from their sin.”

Let me give you what I call “the devoted life for commuters and subway straphangers.” It is a simple way for busy Christians to lead a practical, deeply devoted life with nothing mystical about it.

Devotion to Jesus means trusting him alone to meet every need of your body, soul and spirit. It means giving up looking to any other person or source to meet those needs. Many single people say, “I’m sick of being lonely. I need a mate. If only God would give me someone!”  

No, a mate would never be able to meet such a need. In fact, a mate could possibly make you twice as miserable because you would have not only your own headaches but his or hers as well. Until Jesus is your focus, until you see him as your only true satisfaction, you will sink deeper and deeper into despair.

At one point, Jesus wanted to prove to his disciples that he was on top of any situation, so he called Peter to get out of the boat and walk on the water to meet him. Peter obeyed; and as long as he remained focused on Jesus, he was above everything, actually walking on water. However, when the disciple began to focus on his surroundings, he started to sink (see Matthew 14:28-31).

The lesson here is elementary. What do you do when you get that sinking feeling? Do you call out to a friend for help? Or do you keep your eyes focused on Jesus and cry out, “Lord, save me”?

The bride of Christ will be comprised of those who have given up trying to find help, comfort or satisfaction from anything on this earth. They have learned to depend wholly on the one they love to fully satisfy their every hunger and thirst.

Do you have this kind of walk with Jesus? I urge you to keep your eyes focused on your bridegroom. Expect his return at any moment and do not look to anyone or anything else to fulfill you.

Not long ago, I was sitting outside my house, reading my Bible, and I suddenly felt this intense longing. I found myself saying, “Jesus, I wish you were physically here. I wish you would sit next to me on my porch, open my Bible, and talk to me about it. I wish I could see your eyes and hear your voice.”

In that moment, I was reminded of the scriptures where Jesus said, “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away…” (John 16:7, ESV). How many of you have heard that scripture? I’ve heard it since I was a little boy. The problem is that I’m not sure I ever believed it. I’ve honestly often thought that it would be better if Jesus was with me right now. I get on a plane and think, “I wish he was sitting next to me on this plane.” It'd be a perfect world to have Jesus sitting on one side of me and my wife sitting on the other!

Here's what Jesus said to me, though, that time on my porch. “Gary, if I was here on earth, at best, you’d get five minutes of my time per year because there’d be a big line.” 

If Jesus was physically here on earth, he would be limited to the capacity of humanity. There would be only so much that he could do or say to each one of us before it’d be like “Okay, next. Next person. Next.” 

Now that his Spirit and truth is living in us, he is with you all the time! He never has to leave you to eat or sleep or see someone else. I thought that when the Bible says, “He will never leave you or forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6), it meant kind of doctrinally. God won’t allow me to ever not be a Christian; he’ll hold me in my faith. 

Now I see that verse as promising that Christ will never leave me. He’s right here with me. He’ll be on the airplane with me. Anytime I’m in my car and I want to talk to him, he’s right there. That actually is much better than him being physically here, isn’t it?  

The New Testament shows us two groups of people: the tax collectors and the zealots. The former were Jews who collected taxes from their fellow Jews for the Roman Empire. They made their living by charging an extra amount on top of what everyone owed. Some of them extracted as much as they could and became very well-to-do. Many Jews saw tax collectors as traitors because they became wealthy by collaborating with the Roman authorities at the expense of their own people.

The zealots strongly believed that the Romans should not rule their land, and they considered violence an appropriate response. Some factions of the zealots we would probably call terrorists today. They murdered in the name of religion, and they hated traitors, specifically tax collectors. 

Putting those two together probably wouldn’t be a good idea, but what do we see in the gospels? “He [Jesus] called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction. The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him” (Matthew 10:1-4, ESV, my emphasis). 

Jesus put a tax collector and a zealot together in his closest group of disciples. Matthew wrote this and included those labels so we would know about the potential conflict here. Jesus specifically called them to work and live together, and you can be sure he did that on purpose. 

Our tendency is to hang out with people like us, but that’s a club, not church. Church represents Jesus’s loves, not your likes. God can put you with people who irritate you. That’s how sandpaper works. You get the rough edges rubbed off of you, and you become more like Christ. 

So the next time your zealot nature sits next to an irritating tax collector, think about how Jesus may have placed that person in your life to make you a stronger Christian. Once you get that far, think about how God is almost certainly using you to sanctify somebody else, and then rejoice. This is the church as Christ intended it!

^{After pastoring an inner-city congregation in Detroit for thirty years, Pastor Tim served at Brooklyn Tabernacle in NYC for five years and pastored in Lafayette, Louisiana, for five years. He became Senior Pastor of Times Square Church in May of 2020.}

Psalm 107 has been called “the Old Testament love feast.” One of the most encouraging passages in all of God’s Word, it is for those needing forgiveness, deliverance or restoration. The final verse promises the reader an understanding of who God truly is. “Whoever is wise will observe these things, and they will understand the lovingkindness of the Lord” (Psalm 107:43, NKJV).

"Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! For his mercy endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from the hand of the enemy, and gathered out of the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. They wandered in the wilderness in a desolate way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them" (Psalm 107:1-5).

Here is a classification of people who once knew the fullness of the Lord and at some time in their life discovered glorious deliverance. Now, however, they are in a solitary wilderness, wandering alone, and they cannot find the city.

"The city" in the Old Testament is always Zion, which represents God's true church. Today, of course, it signifies the true body of Christ, those who worship in spirit and in truth but cannot seem to find “the city.” They no longer attend church, refusing to worship with any body of believers because there is little or no spiritual reality to be found.

Indeed, there are multitudes of starving Christians who go from church to church today, trying to find their place. In the end, they give up even seeking a good church because they are determined that there are none. Perhaps you say, "Brother Dave, I can't find a Christ-centered, holiness-seeking church in my area. I can't find the city."

Beloved, God has provided a solution. "Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city for a dwelling place" (Psalm 107:6-7).

God says, "I will show you the body; I will lead you right to them." Rest assured, Jesus has his body of believers all over the world; and if you cry out to him, he will miraculously bring like-minded Christians to you.