A Message From Jon A Very Merry Christmas to you SearchLighters! I pray you will be surprisingly and wondrously blessed before this day is through in both remembering and experiencing Emmanuel, God (IS) With Us. And one day, not too far away, all of us will be celebrating and worshiping Him together, in one place, with one heart. Indeed, Well all be Home for Christmas, You can count on this... Again, Merry Christmas ...and... Maranatha!!!! Rejoicing this day with you, Jon Daily Devotional December 27 And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD. Zechariah 11:13 In the small town of Carioth, a boy grew up. Educated and refined, in his twenties he began following an itinerant Rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth. Chosen by the Master to be one of His twelve disciples, he was the only one from the southern part of the nation. People from the north were thought to be uncouth, unteachable, unyielding. Eleven of the men Jesus chose were from Galilee in the north. Judas of Carioth was not one of them. No doubt he spoke with the accent of an intellectual sophisticate. Maybe that is why he was appointed treasurer of the group. No doubt it would seem that at the beginning of Jesus ministry, Judas would be His right-hand man. But we know, of course, that Judas was, in fact, His betrayer. Why did Judas betray Jesus? Perhaps it was because he was disillusioned with Jesus. Maybe he thought that when Jesus was made King, he would have the prestigious post of secretary of the treasury. But when Jesus began to say that His Kingdom was not of this world, when He purposely went to small towns that had no political importance, Judas’ heart must have sunk. The same thing can happen to us. When Jesus doesn’t work the way we think He should, we can become disillusioned and vulnerable to a degree of betrayal as well. When Jesus sat at the Last Supper and told His disciples that one of them would betray Him, they didn’t say, “It’s Judas.” He wasn’t even suspected. Instead, they looked to themselves and said, “Is it I?” I must ask this question as well. “Am I using You to do my own thing, Lord? Search my heart.” After realizing he had betrayed innocent blood, Judas brought the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders. When they refused to take it, he cast the money down on the floor of the Temple. In Matthew 27:10, we read that a potter’s field was purchased with this money - exactly as Zechariah prophesied. Thus, a prophecy given 520 years earlier was fulfilled to the letter. Culturally, being paid the price of an injured slave was insulting to Zechariah. Prophetically, however, it was exacting. But personally, it is incredibly comforting. You see, the potter’s field was the field outside the house of the potter wherein broken or flawed pottery and clay were thrown. The potter’s field was the least valuable piece of property in the area because, filled with pottery accumulated over centuries, the soil was useless. In Jeremiah 18, God likens Himself to a Master Potter and us to lumps of clay He shapes into vessels for His use. If, however, we refuse to respond to the shaping He desires to do in our lives, as worthless pieces of pottery, we find ourselves in the potter’s field. Yet what did Jesus do? The money that was used to betray Him was then specifically used to buy the most worthless piece of property, the place filled with cracked pots and marred vessels. That’s what Jesus always does. His blood purchased people like you and me - people with nicks and chips, flaws and failures - and then He reshapes, remolds, and renews us. If I were Jesus, I would have bought beachfront property. He, however, bought me. If you feel broken, remember Zechariah’s prophecy - and never forget Jesus’ unspeakable love. This Daily Devotional is an excerpt from the book A Day of Feasting by Pastor Jon. A Day of Feasting is a collection of 365 short devotions from the Old Testament books of Joshua through Malachi.If you would like your own copy of A Day of Feasting you may click here to go to the SearchLight Store.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 18:19:44 +0000
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