Devotions

Many Christians in the Western world feel uncomfortable sharing their faith. Some don’t evangelize because they feel like everyone more or less knows about Jesus. Others say that they live out their faith without needing to preach it.

However, Jesus told his followers, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15, ESV). Jesus’ disciples actively preached the gospel. Guided by the Holy Spirit, they prayed for strangers, accomplished miracles and shared Jesus with everyone in every circumstance. They were radical and relentless.

How can we follow the disciples’ example in today’s world?

We who live in Christ walk even as he walked. The Acts of the Apostles aren’t just inspirational stories and historical record. Neither are they a dry template for evangelism. They are just the beginning of the story, and now it’s our turn to write our chapter. Jesus knew this when he said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses…to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Our desperate, anxious world wants to hear what Jesus has done for us! They want to know that today, two thousand years after the apostles lived, they too can know the joyful, transformational love of Jesus.

There is something contagious about being around people who love Jesus so much that his love just flows out of them. I call it a baptism of love. They don’t feel obligated to share the good news. They have been spending time in the presence of God and they can’t help but share the joy of their salvation.

People with this contagious love have decided, “I'm not going to just read my Bible anymore. I want to live it.” They realize that the Book of Acts never really ended; it is meant to continue today. They have had a literal “come to Jesus” moment where they were finished with clinical, academic approaches to evangelism. No more how-to instructions and formulas, no more sweaty palms and stilted conversations, and no more being attached to the results. It’s just you — my neighbor, co-worker, Uber driver, friend — and me, someone who woke up excited to share the joy of knowing Jesus with you. “As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’” (Romans 10:15).

Inevitably when someone well known dies, I get asked, “Do you think that person is in heaven?” Before I respond, I always think of John Newton, the eighteenth-century former slave ship captain who became an abolitionist and clergyman. He said, “If I ever reach heaven I expect to find three wonders there: first, to meet some I had not thought to see there; second, to miss some I had expected to see there; and third, the greatest wonder of all, to find myself there.”

Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a vineyard owner who hired workers early in the morning and agreed to pay them a certain amount of money, a denarius, for their day’s wages.

Around midmorning, the vineyard owner caught sight of some others who were loitering in the marketplace, so he offered them work and set wages to tend to his vineyard. He rounded up more workers at noon, at midafternoon and in the early evening, offering the same work for a set wage.

At quitting time, the owner directed his foreman to summon the workers, starting with the last group, and to pay them their wages. Each group received a denarius. By the time the foreman summoned the first group who had worked all day, they believed they would receive more wages because they had worked longer. And yet the foreman handed each person a denarius. The men in the first group complained to the owner, saying it wasn’t fair…but the owner replied, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?” (Matthew 20:15, ESV).

Jesus ended this parable by saying, “So the last will be first, and the first last” (Matthew 20:16). I was born again at a very young age, so I am part of that first group of workers Jesus talked about. One day, my payment will be heaven and eternal life.

Others are part of the last group, what I call the eleventh-hour person. They won’t work as long as I and others have, but here’s their payment: heaven and eternal life. You’ve worked hard, lived a good life, followed all the rules, so how is it fair that some guy who lived a terrible life gets the same reward when he seeks forgiveness within moments of his death? Jesus explains that the reward is given because God is generous.

This devotion is an excerpt taken from Tim Dilena’s book The 260 Journey. You can find it in the World Challenge bookstore.  

_{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.} 

Joseph’s brothers had no idea how much they were loved until God used a crisis to show them. “The famine was over all the face of the earth, and Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold them to the Egyptians. And the famine became severe in the land of Egypt. …When Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, Jacob said to his sons, ‘Why do you look at one another?’ And he said, ‘Indeed I have heard that there is grain in Egypt; go down to that place and buy for us there, that we may live and not die.’” (Genesis 41:56; 42:1-3 NKJV).

Twenty years had passed since Joseph’s brothers had sold him into slavery. Now he was prime minister of Egypt, and he had been storing grain for seven years in preparation for what he knew was a coming widespread famine. His brothers thought they were going to Egypt to buy corn, but God had bigger plans. Deserving nothing but judgment, they would instead experience mercy and restoration.

I always find it impossible to read this part of the story without tears. It is a beautiful picture of the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ for all who have failed him.

As the brothers stood before Joseph in Pharoah’s court, they didn’t recognize him, but he knew them immediately (see Genesis 42:8). There they were, bowing down to him just as he had dreamed. Was Joseph angry? No, his heart was filled with compassion at the sight of his beloved brothers.

So why did he then accuse them of being spies? I once thought Joseph was getting a bit of revenge, but that was not his motive. He was actually following God's direction. These proud men needed to face the ugliness and guilt of their sin and understand that mercy was their only hope.

Joseph put his brothers in prison for three days to give them a chance to face the truth, and it worked. “Then they said to one another, ‘We are truly guilty concerning our brother, for we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear; therefore this distress has come upon us.’” (Genesis 42:21).

This is the beautiful message of the cross of Christ. When we reach the end of ourselves, his divine mercy and grace deliver us from all condemnation.

God's merciful love is always revealed in response to a cry from the heart. The Bible has a lot to say about that humble cry for deliverance. “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried out to my God; he heard my voice from his temple, and my cry came before him, even to his ears” (Psalm 18:6 NKJV). “Many times he delivered them; but they rebelled in their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity. Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry” (Psalm 106:43-44).

A cry to God will always be answered! No one is too wicked or hopeless if they reach out to him in humility. The story of King Manasseh, one of the most wicked kings of Israel, proves it.

“He raised up altars for Baal, and made a wooden image…he made his son pass through the fire, practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger” (see 2 Kings 21:2-6).

“So Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel” (2 Chronicles 33:9-10).

Is there hope for someone so far from God, so possessed by evil and darkness? Yes! Manasseh ended up a prisoner in a foreign nation, bound with chains. In his affliction, he cried out and God heard him, forgave him and restored him.

“Now when he was in affliction, he implored the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed to him; and he received his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God. …He took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem; and he cast them out of the city” (2 Chronicles 33:12-13,15).

This word of hope, forgiveness, mercy, love and restoration is for you. Hear God’s Word, repent, then be made whole and walk with him! There is no sin that cannot be forgiven when we ask. We are never too far down to be healed and restored.

“Jesus said to him, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’” (John 5:8 NKJV). The crippled man at the Pool of Bethesda had likely heard some of the stories about a man named Jesus healing people throughout the region. What he didn’t know was that Jesus knew about him too. He came to this poor man, lying by the pool in his misery and sorrow, and was moved with compassion. All Jesus asked was that the man believe his words and act on them. “Rise! Take up your bed. Walk away from this scene.”

Now this man, helpless and in despair, faced the biggest decision of his pain-filled life. A word of resurrection hope had come to him, and he was being challenged: Rise by faith and be made whole, or lie there in self-pity and die alone. He could have refused to move, thinking, “It won't work. Out of this multitude, why would God heal little old me? I'm destined to die in this condition.” He had to believe because Jesus could not have raised him up against his will. It was now or never!

When people around questioned why and how Jesus did this, he answered, “‘Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do; for whatever he does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all things that he himself does; and he will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel’” (John 5:19-20). It was God's will, love and desire to make this man completely whole.

It is difficult to believe God still loves you when you are down and weak or when you feel worthless and wonder why he even cares. It takes childlike faith to accept that love and say, “Lord, on your word alone I will arise and walk with you.”

You don't have to understand all the doctrines about sin and righteousness. You may not even know Jesus in a deep and meaningful way. Don’t worry. Those things will come later. All you need to do today is take the first step of obedience, rise and turn to the Lord. “If anyone wills to do his will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on my own authority” (John 7:17).