Ken Winter

God has promised to always be faithful, but most often His faithfulness looks very different from what we thought it would. i have come to believe that God delights in our surprise. He enjoys doing things in ways we would never expect … because it is His way of reminding us that He is God … and we aren’t!

Jesus often takes us on a wilderness journey with Him in order to prepare us and equip us for the task that He is placing before us. Sometimes those wilderness journeys are a very private and personal affair. It’s us and the Lord – and very few others, if any, know about it. It’s a “hidden” journey – and i personally believe that it is in that type of journey that God does His deepest work in our lives.

One day in the temple, three days before His crucifixion, Jesus stood before the religious leaders of the day as their Judge rendering His verdict and His pronouncement over them. He used some very strong words. But don’t think that Jesus had allowed His emotion to get the better of Him. This was not like you or i might do – allowing our anger to seize control of our tongue and spew venom upon those who have hurt us. He was speaking out of an anger that was godly and a judgement that was righteous. 

If someone was to ask you to name the twelve disciples who followed Jesus, how far could you get on the list? There are six names on the list that are more difficult to recall. Since little was written about them, their names tend to fade into obscurity in our memories But here’s the thing: the very fact that Jesus chose them to be His disciples tells us that He could entrust them to carry out His mission to make disciples. 

Not one of them was anyone special on their own merit. They were ordinary people – just like the rest of us. But as they walked with the Master, He transformed them into His image and empowered them for His mission. 

Forty years had passed since the Israelites’ journey out of Egypt had begun, and the journey hadn’t looked anything like they had envisioned it would be. And they were still journeying through the unknown … just like we are. There would be challenges ahead – those they could see – like the Jordan River and the city of Jericho – and those they had not yet seen.

It was the first day of the week, and the crowd was enthusiastically welcoming Jesus into the city. Most of the people spread their garments or branches on the road before Him. Everyone appeared to love Jesus! Well, maybe not everyone. But, at that moment, you would have thought everyone did by the way the crowd was acting. 

The statement was made by Gamaliel, who appears to have been a voice of reason and carried great weight with the high priest Caiaphas, Annas and the others on the high council.

The man had not come to the pool of Bethesda that day expecting to encounter Jesus. He was hopelessly trusting in a pool of water that had no power. He didn’t even know who Jesus was. But Jesus knew him!

The day had started out no different from any other. A large crowd had been following Him throughout the day. Jesus was approaching the gate to enter the village of Nain. At the same time, a funeral procession was making its way out of the village on its way to the cemetery.

i often wonder what i would have done. Jesus asked the servants at the wedding in Cana to do something that was outlandish. They had no reason to expect the outcome that occurred. But that’s why Jesus rewarded their faith.