We easily draw safe boundaries around God’s grace, welcoming those who seem familiar while overlooking those who feel foreign or difficult. Yet the distant wise men of Matthew 2 and the rejoicing Gentiles of Acts 13 confront those boundaries: Jesus came to reach the world. Who might God be placing beyond our comfort, yet within the reach of his good news?
Most of us would rather keep our doubts quiet than be caught not having it all figured out—especially around people who assume we do. Nicodemus, one of the most respected religious teachers of his day, came to Jesus under cover of night with exactly that tension, and in John 3 Jesus meets him there, in the dark, unfinished.
God had just routed the mightiest army of the ancient world on Hezekiah’s behalf, then healed him from a terminal illness—and somehow, facing the next threat, Hezekiah forgot both and went looking for an ally he could hold onto. Isaiah 39 traces how that forgetfulness works in a believing heart, and why it’s the sneakiest danger of all.
We may think it’d be nice if there were a device where we could make people tell the truth. But, what about ourselves? We take credit that belongs to someone else, withhold truth when it could help, or pass along a claim we have not checked. How out of control are our own words everyday?
We think we’re so strong until we’re not—and Genesis 26 puts that uncomfortable truth right in front of us, as Isaac moves almost without pause from a mountaintop moment of God’s renewed covenant promise straight into lying about his own wife out of fear.